The Radical Right During Crisis. Группа авторов
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href="#ulink_82e74eaf-5864-584d-afb6-e9f12d534e45">5 It is precisely the mutual reinforcement of facing a perceived existential threat, coupled with the conspiratorial narrative of a culpable establishment, that serves to legitimise violence and empower individuals to act upon this “threat”. Thus, even if such acts are committed by lone actors, they take place in the context of open hostility towards minorities, “elites”, “old parties”, and democratic procedures.
From radical milieus to terrorist subcultures
Right-wing terrorists are often linked to radical milieus from which they receive not only ideological, but also infrastructural and organisational support. These support structures are integral to traditional forms of (right-wing) terrorism. However, some of the most recent perpetrators of right-wing terrorist attacks did not rely on group logistics or specific networks to carry out their actions. Although the individuals who committed the attacks were not integrated into far-right organisational structures and could therefore not expect any support from them, they still conformed to extremist subcultures that follow their own norms and values. For example, the perpetrators of both the Christchurch and Halle attacks in March and October 2019, respectively, uploaded so-called manifestos online, which contained many references to relevant Chan communities, demonstrating that they saw themselves as part of a transnational virtual subculture of white supremacists.
With these performative online actions, perpetrators consciously address a transnational audience, formulating their ideological set pieces in such a way that transcends national borders and languages and can be understood by a far-right audience “in the know”. Thus, this digitally mediated form of right-wing terrorism can no longer be understood in the absence of the wider transnational context. In particular, image-based forums such as 4Chan and 8kun (previously 8Chan) are used by the extreme right not only as a space for inspiring new lone actor terrorists, but also as a means to express their ideology with humorous and ironic discourses, thereby making it increasingly difficult to distinguish between organised action and individual acts of provocation.
Trivialising mass violence
Far-right actors are deliberately calling on their followers to post content in ironic formats in order to forge new virtual alliances, and to incorporate far-right themes into the public debate. Within this context, meme culture is an important tool used by the extreme right to imply that what they say should not be taken seriously and that their rhetoric is “harmless” or “just for laughs”, despite the fact that the memes often display overtly racist overtones. Memes are used as a way to appeal to a younger audience and trivialise or even glorify right-wing violence.6
One key tactic here is to reach out to the wider spectrum of the far-right sub-movements; that is, individuals who do not necessarily fall under the extreme end of the spectrum, but who may hold anti-immigration sentiments, support radical right-wing populist parties and politicians, and/or believe that freedom of expression is threatened by a culture of “political correctness”. Amongst the extreme right, these sub-movements are referred to as the “normies”; the far-right view such individuals as potential target audiences that can be radicalised through exploiting the above grievances.
Grasping the intangible
In terms of long-term prospects, it is important to place more attention on the cultural practices of the radical online milieus from which right-wing extremists emerge. Above all, this requires familiarity with transnational online cultures of the far-right; namely, their codes, ironic references, language, and frames. Corresponding clues could then be matched with more conspicuous features that point to the planning of violent acts. Such nuances and sub-text can be difficult to identify, and therefore stronger analytical capacity within and across tech companies is important. Whilst hashes may help to identify certain images, an additional level of human content moderation is vital to decipher these codes.
Although action against incitement and threatening behaviour is important in order to prevent potential acts of violence, it is also worth emphasising that extremist violence is not a consequence of hate speech alone. Whilst myths concerning the perceived threat of foreigners and the culpable establishment do not explicitly call for hatred and violence, they do play a significant role in legitimising violence. Espousing these narratives is not a criminal offence, however extreme right-wing actors are fully adept at spreading and amplifying such myths and conspiracy theories across social media. The problem lies not in individual content and posts, but rather the complex extremist networks that disseminate such narratives and infiltrate mainstream discussions and platforms with swarm tactics.7 Thus, knowledge-sharing and collaboration between larger and smaller tech firms is required, as the latter have less resources at their disposal and extremists are more likely to exploit such platforms.
Reem Ahmed is a researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy and doctoral candidate at the University of Hamburg.
Maik Fielitz is a Doctoral Fellow at CARR and a researcher at the Jena Institute for Democracy.
1 Katrin Bennhold and Melissa Eddy, “‘Politics of Hate’ Takes a Toll in Germany Well Beyond Immigrants,” New York Times, February 23, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/world/europe/germany-mayors-far-right.html.
2 German Federal Government, “A Clear Signal in the Fight Against Right-Wing Extremism and Racism,” Press and Information Office of the Federal Government, November 25, 2020, https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/cabinet-right-wing-extremism-1820094.
3 Reem Ahmed et al., “Transnationale Sicherheitsrisiken: Eine Neue Welle Des Rechts-terrorismus,” in Friedensgutachten 2020: Im Schatten der Pandemie: letzte Chance für Europa, ed. BICC et al. (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2020), 139–57.
4 Jacob Aasland Ravndal et al., RTV Trend Report 2020: Right-Wing Terrorism and Violence in Western Europe, 1990—2019 (Oslo: Center for Research on Extremism, 2020), https://www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/groups/rtv-dataset/rtv_trend_report_2020.pdf.
5 Ivo Oliviera, “AfD Deputy Leader Says Angela Merkel is a ‘Dictator’,”, Politico, June 5, 2016, https://www.politico.eu/article/alexander-gauland-afd-deputy-leader-says-angela-merkel-is-a-dictator-migrants-far-right/.
6 Maik Fielitz and Reem Ahmed, It’s Not Funny Anymore. Far-Right Extremists’ Use of Humour (European Commission: Radicalization Awareness Network, 2021).
7 Bharath Ganesh, “The Ungovernability of Digital Hate Culture,” Journal for International Affairs, December 19, 2018, https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/ungovernability-digital-hate-culture.
Germany’s Terrorist Attack: Migrant Communities Have Lost Trust
Barbara Manthe
The racist attack in Hanau on 19 February 2020 has left Germany with the question of whether the problem of radical right terrorism has been wrongly addressed so far. After the murder of Walter Lübcke in June 2019 and the anti-Semitic attack in Halle in October the same year, the Hanau attack was the third fatal crime in just nine months. The series of attacks seems to be an expression of a radicalised right-wing terrorist milieu that inspires perpetrators